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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649105">Roadhouse Auto</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerulea/pseuds/Cerulea'>Cerulea</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Famous Dean Winchester, First Meeting, Gabriel is a good brother, Human AU, M/M, Mechanic Dean Winchester, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reluctant Reality tv star Dean, Strangers to Lovers, Veteran Castiel, shifting pov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:02:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,474</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649105</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerulea/pseuds/Cerulea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester is a reluctant reality TV star after signing a deal that kept his beloved family auto repair and detailing shop from going under, and gave america a peek behind the scenes into their motley crew. Dean hates the attention, but it pays the bills.</p><p>Castiel is a Veteran whose meddling but well-meaning brother is relentless in trying to get him back out into the world. It isn't that he wants to be reclusive, it's just that Gabriel's idea of getting back on his feet involves the flashing bulbs and noisy frivolity of Hollywood parties. </p><p>Neither particularly want to be where they find themselves, completely out of their element - but then, it might just turn out for the best after all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Roadhouse Auto</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I hope someone out there enjoys this, I really enjoyed writing it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s inexplicable. Dean’s meteoric rise to pop-culture relevance. It makes no sense. He’s just a biker, some high school drop-out who’s good with cars. He’s a grunt who grew up on spaghetti-o’s and cheap beer and nothing about millions of people knowing his name makes any sense to him. </span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sure, all those novelty repair shop reality tv shows are saved to his DVR too, but he’s a racer, not a tv star. A greasemonkey. He’s meant to be a <em>consumer</em> of that kind of entertainment. Those programs are like watching documentaries on his own school of study. But the idea that he’s in that community now, that he’s been on the other side of the lens and apparently a not-insignificant percentage of the common american has enjoyed it - that people know him that he doesn’t know back because he signed a ridiculously scant, remarkably brief contract with A&amp;E for the sole purpose of saving his shop... it’s unsettling. </span> <span class="s1">To say the least. </span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Now not only is he in syndication for the brief stint on camera that he subjected himself and his whole crew to, but there are more offers every day for him to reprise his role as himself. An increasing number of people seem to know him by name, and also, unfortunately, by face. <em>There are promotional images</em>. Dean had only barely scraped through one photo shoot - hollywood types fussing with his hair and alligator-clipping the backs of his shirts so he felt like some horrible combination of a painted whore and a sausage - before he’d stormed red-faced and all torqued-up into his <em>manager’s</em> office and laid down the damn law that he was never, read: NEVER, doing that shit again. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Even now when he sees those photos he thinks they’re mortifying. His jaw is clenched and his lips are doing that godawful pouty thing that’s gotten him so much grief over the years and he feels like he looks ridiculous. He looks angry, to himself. Because he knows how embarrassed and frustrated he was at the time. His friends and family tell him it smacks of real modeling, that it looks legit and they always knew Dean had that pretty face for a reason. They call him “Beckham” and “Cindy” (as in Crawford) and quickly begin referring to the look as his “blue steel” expression. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Dean hates it. The first time he was unexpectedly confronted with a gigantically blown-up, high resolution image of his own face plastered on a billboard he nearly puked. When he came home with a bonnet full of bees and took it out on his brother Sam and his may-as-well-be father, Bobby, they could only put up with it for a few hours until Dean found himself sat down in the living room very much against his will to get his head on straight and explain himself. Initially he’d tried to wave them off. He told them to join a ladies’ book of the month club if they wanted to extrapolate meaning from every little godforsaken thing. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was exactly the kind of bullshit his dad would have said. Thrown up as a roadblock between his emotions and people who might care. But Sam and Bobby called him on it. They always do, and while Dean would never say it, he’s glad someone cares enough to do so. Eventually they managed to eke a golden enough nugget of truth out of him that they took pity on and relented; Dean admitted, with high shoulders and in a rushed breath, that he doesn’t even like being singled out at birthday parties, so the attention, the idea that an undetermined number of strangers may now be interested in him was messing with his head, making him feel exposed and fidgety and under a microscope. In the way he used to when his Dad was feeling particularly militant, though that part he kept to himself. </span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">That paired with the fact that he wasn’t dating was a recipe for a drunken melt-down. See, if he’d been dating already when they made the deal with the network, there wouldn’t be all this mess about whether or not Dean was ‘out’. There was a complicated web of intricacies involved in Dean’s sexual identity, or so it suddenly seemed. For most of his mature life, the fact that Dean was bisexual didn’t have any bearing on the way he lived his life save for who he spent his time sharing his bed with. For all of the flack backwoods folk like his get for being too old fashioned or behind the times, not knowing all of the PC words for everything and everyone, it was them who’d shown him the most respect. When you date in the city, everyone wants your super-meta, self-aware labels and definitions as soon as you step in the door. Dean knew exactly who he was and he was comfortable with it, but being asked to constantly define and reassess and define again under a new filter was exhausting and, he thought, unnecessary. He knew it made other people feel good, to have a title to own, to give name to intricacies of their sexual identity and hold onto that and he didn’t fault them that. He could see how a label, something to have for yourself, might go a long way towards some people’s confidence and sense of community. But it wasn’t the way he needed to live. He appreciated the quiet acceptance of his redneck friends.The respect of his privacy and the strength to not bat an eye when on Christmas Dean had a boyfriend and by Easter he had a girlfriend. </span> <span class="s1">He didn’t begrudge them the ignorance of not having the language to politely talk about it. </span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">At any rate, all that sorting was done years ago and the fact that Dean seemed capable of loving ‘either or’ was old news to those who knew and loved him. And as maturity often develops, the older he got, the less comfortable Dean felt making a scene or talking at length about hook-ups and relationships alike. He became more private as he better understood the responsibility of love. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He didn’t think much about the fact that it coincided with the longer and longer hours at the shop and the extensive responsibilities involved in caring for Bobby and the rest of his family. Before Dean knew it, he’d been a romantically unambitious bachelor for almost three years. So when the network came along and offered to put him on television for a ridiculous sum of money, as the face of a unique shop manned by a fantastic group of misfits, sexuality and the issues it could provoke was the furthest thing from his mind.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Now he wonders if it all would have been easier if he’d showed up to sign the contracts with a rainbow flag on the back of his car so they couldn’t gotten all the awkward ‘image’ talk out of the way right then and there.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But then, he also wonders if the deal might have been outright revoked then and there.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Dean wasn’t hiding it, but he didn’t exactly want to chat it up with a network exec either. He detests the idea of the entire world peeking into his bedroom. Regardless, somehow they ferreted the information out. The easily categorized factors that make Dean up as a number on a spreadsheet don’t seem to coalesce with what they think <em>gay</em> means. And like any time that the old white guys with money’s antiquated but comfortably black and white views are challenged, there’s some backlash. This time in the form of some carefully vague intent of re-closeting that Dean wants absolutely zero fucks to do with, thank you very much. And some veiled imploring of Dean to keep up the good work. Keep his image stable. As though he would make some sort of gay mistake. Or worse, network forbid, a bi mistake. It had been made clear to them that bisexuality was not something that they could sell in conjunction with his image of a manly-man who could trick out a harley and punch a UFC fighter in the face and live to talk about it (long story). </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It wasn’t hard at all for Dean to make the decision to tell them to take their money and their contract and go fuck themselves. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was, frankly, an embarrassingly brief time apart before they came crawling back with the sincerest apologies. And with a new spin of course. They needed something to combat the growing discontent over the homophobia and hard right-ness of Duck Dynasty-type programming and Dean was the perfect example of a queer role model they could sell - a rough-and-tumble type who breaks steroetype, how novel. There was zero altruism involved in it, merely an apt look at the changing times and swaying popular opinion. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Dean was in no mood to be defined by his sexuality, especially if it meant being used as a token, and despite the network’s growing nerves they knew he’d walk if they didn’t sign yet another well-constructed contract limiting the scope of their rights to his personal life and image. Another fruit basket owed to Winchester the younger, lawyer extraodinaire, by his grateful older brother. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The contract was flawlessly ironclad, and Dean managed to get everything he wanted, with one small exception - the agreement to do no less than three appearances, two of which would be specifically mandated by the network, the third of which dealer’s choice from the roulette wheel of studio-approved options (Dean is leaning toward RIDE with Norman Reedus). And as Sam put it, the studio had a point. You can’t market a show no one knows anything about, and if no one sees it, there’s no point in making it. Gotta give em an inch, so you can sneak off with the mile (and your shop’s mortgage paid). Sam was also, freakishly so, accurate when he rolled his eyes at Dean and deduced that Dean had secretly hoped that maybe he could get away with getting paid without anyone<em> actually seeing</em> the show. But that is not now nor has that ever been the way of show-business. </span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">So, here he is, in a new suit the price-tag of which made him slack-jawed and dizzy but was thankfully picked-up by the network, powder on his face and hands scrubbed clean. Riding in a fancy Lincoln up to a literal red carpet. </span> <span class="s1">Dean’s never been to a Hollywood party and he’d never had reason before to suppose what it would be like. But in the heart-pounding moments before the car rolled to a stop outside of the paparazzi-packed venue, he didn’t imagine he’d like it. </span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He was right. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Here he is, alone, in a sea of event-regulars. It’s a lot of people, looking real put together, all standing around, shmoozing, having their photo taken. And the photographers are like bats that get stuck in your attic and become territorial in their confusion over how to get out. It seems like the more Dean ducks them, the hungrier the paps get to flash their bulbs at him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He’s lucky. He’s doing a speaking event the next morning (rolled into this monkey-show, so no, it’s not his second of three obligatory appearances but merely an extension of the first) and they got him a room at this ritzy joint. The only downside is that his path to escape is right in the middle of the festivity. So success in slipping away unnoticed feels tenuous at best. He doesn’t want to be caught playing hooky, or god forbid, followed to his room. Dean is confident and he knows he can turn up the charm. He’s a shameless flirt, more often than not. But the sexual atmosphere of this event is aggressive on a level that he is neither familiar nor comfortable with, and the likelihood that someone who took “no thank you” too lightly might end up naked by his mini-bar without his permission is terrifyingly high. </span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">He’s been at this event for three hours and been propositioned no less than five times. Five. Dean knew hollywood types were a little more loosey-goosey with the social rules of courting but <em>damn</em>... And it isn’t that he hasn’t done his fair share of fooling around in his day, but the way these people are going about it sets him back on his heels. It’s so blatant. And <em>expectant</em>. As though Dean had said <em>yes</em> before they asked. He get’s trailed after by a couple of tipsy reality tv girls whose faces are contoured into the next dimension and who are in dresses so tight he can see their pores through the fabric. That’s not to take anything away form them. He respects anyone’s right to their body, and their desire to dress it up - or not - however they so choose, and frankly, these girls have the curves to pull it off. He’s been the beneficiary of the free female spirit more than a few times in his life and he has never once regretted it. Women have a certain magic Dean has always appreciated, and when they own it - whew that’s something dangerous in the best way. </span> <span class="s1">So body confidence, Dean doesn’t judge. </span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But bad manners he does. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There’s something about being pursued, relentlessly, when all of the tactful ways of declining have been employed once and twice again, that puts Dean on an awful edge. He’s on his best behavior because there are new people around, cameras, he’s in public. But it becomes obvious very quickly that he is fresh meat. The new guy, poised to make news. And that anticipation and curiosity seems to turn more heads than scandal itself. He doesn’t want to be part of this sphere, doesn’t want to seem petty and manufactured to create good tv drama. He knows his mother would have wanted him to be a gentleman, so that’s what he is. But there’s only so many times a man can insinuate that a lady’s advances are unwanted before he’s fighting the violent urge to physically remove her from his personal bubble. Their batted lashes and pouted lips and horrible mechanic-innuendoes about being “good with his hands” and “handling horsepower” are exhaustingly, embarrassingly unwanted. He can’t stop thinking about the myriad of pictures there are going to be of him in unacceptable proximity to these women, thanks to their lack of respect for personal space and the constant flash of cameras. No doubt for them, not him, as these women are the pinnacle of hollywood-rag gossip and could buy his shop and everyone in it seven times over without breaking a sweat. Another motivation for staying polite. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But even when he manages to extract himself from the clutches of the vixens, shouted at by name by all the paparazzi behind the ridiculous velvet rope, he ends up cornered by some over-tanned, too smiley celebrity host. The kind that made his bones charming the mic right out of the hands of his predecessors, then sliding into the thick of this exhaustingly glitzy world. He thinks the guy is good-humored enough he might be worth wasting the rest of this time with, chatting. But they’re barely through their initial getting to know you’s when the guy asks who Dean’s fucking. Just like that. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So, which one of ‘em are you fucking?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yep, just like that. Dean’s grip on his glass becomes somewhat precarious. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Come on,” he goads, nudging Dean’s shoulder. “Guy like you, you’re definitely fucking one of ‘em. Don’t be coy, I’ve sampled the lot myself, you know?” He chortles at his own joke and though his hair is perfect, his face is well-made enough, his teeth perfectly white, in that moment he looks like some kind of nightmare to Dean. He can’t even begin to delve into the insult wrapped in pretension that is the previous statement - <em>a guy like you</em>. Who, exactly, does this asshole think Dean is? He knows if he goes down that road there’s a chance someone’s perfect teeth are about to get knocked out and Dean’s not trying to get arrested at his first Hollywood shindig. Poor Sam’s got enough to worry about. And he can’t prove himself the uncivilized redneck in a room of Cali starlets. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The relief he feels when his name is called across the room and he has the excuse he need to exeunt from that soon-to-be scene immediately is shocking. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He makes his way over to a familiar face, a network guy Dean’s been in a couple rooms with over the course of the network’s courting of Roadhouse Auto and its love able heathens. He’s a typical business guy, spends the time shmoozing and bores Dean half to tears telling mundane stories which are a blatant vehicle for as much name dropping as he can get done without referencing his notes. He’s bringing Dean around like the new boyfriend at a family dinner, spilling flattery and a creepily affectionate ownership of Dean all over every interaction that’s making Dean’s shoulders tense a little more with every introduction. It’s only when he tries to pair him off with yet another reality tv starlet who laughs hollowly and leans in close to Dean when the exec and his buddy from her show joke about skyrocketing rating due to cross network romance that the brimming, furious feeling of being paraded like a brood mare sends him politely excusing himself from the conversation.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Dean’s glad he’s only had the one drink, or he may have become too worked up to maintain politeness. </span> <span class="s1">He checks his borrowed Hublot watch as subtly as he can. Two more hours until it’s acceptable to flee. He realizes that the only smart thing to do is to flit about making small talk with as many different people as he can, to avoid becoming attached to any one individual or group. He essentially makes himself a moving target. It’s interesting enough, meeting so many people, assessing so many different categories of reality star. </span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">But as the afternoon turns into evening and the drinks get stronger, the atmosphere gets more raucous. Finally, time</span> <span class="s1"> is up and Dean tries so hard not to be visibly happy about it as he checks his watch and heads out of the fray.</span></p><p class="p3"><span class="s1">On his way out he is swarmed by people who want to take selfies, want to kiss him, want him to sign their tits. He is entirely discomforted by all of it. In the back of his mind he knows his younger self would have been hungry and ecstatic for this attention and he silently thanks the universe he didn’t come to his small portion of fame at a younger age. He manages a few pictures with fans and a few miscellaneous items for signing without major incident and extracts himself successfully without feel like a complete asshole. Then he still has to get through the paparazzi to get inside. </span> <span class="s1">Strangers call out his name, and it’s trippy. They don’t know him. They’re completely anonymous behind their cameras but they call him by his name, and he’s lived enough of a small-town life to have to actively fight the urge to turn on instinct and make sure he doesn’t know them. When he doesn’t, they use his entire name, shout out personal questions, or just generally yell at him in hopes of holding his attention. It’s unsettling. He feels violated, being the center of so much focus. He’s a fairly private man, and there’s an entire gallery of strangers asking him about his business, his family - Sam, his dead parents, his Uncle/surrogate father - and it makes his head pound and his heartrate skyrocket. He’s nearly out of breath for no reason by the time he gets to the room with the number matching the one clipped to the ornate, old fashioned key and fights open the door. He darts in and closes it, locking the door behind him and collapsing back against it with a weary sigh. </span></p><p class="p3"><span class="s1">The sudden quiet of the room is a blessing. He lets his head thud back against the door in relief and just breathes. </span> <span class="s1">His heart rate is nearly back to normal when the sound of another voice makes him nearly jump out of his boots. </span></p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Hello-” </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Dean jumps from the door and locks eyes on a stranger. In his room. A man who is... on the floor of his hotel room, tucked off to the side, just barely obscured by the minibar as though he’s hiding. The man is dressed in a fashionable, expensive suit, but his dark hair is a mess and he looks at Dean with wide, blue eyes and says, “Um - hello.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Dean blinks at him, and a long, silent moment passes during which Dean can’t think of any other response than, </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">
    <b>“THE HELL!?”</b>
  </span>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p2"> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Unbeta’d - any mistakes are my own and I humbly beg forgiveness for any mistreatment of the English language. My laptop is kaput and I am typing on a verrry small keyboard for the time being.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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